Climbing
8 tips on how to take your indoor climbing outdoors
If you’re looking for a genuine adventure, here’s how to convert indoor climbing wall skills into the right stuff for scaling actual rock.
There’s a whole world of granite, sandstone and limestone for you to explore if you gain the necessary skills and experience. But how do you start? It’s probably that barrier that stops most people from enjoying an outdoor climbing adventure, so we asked Spanish mountain guide at Climb Catalunya, Nicolas Durand, to reveal the steps you need to make, to take your climbing outdoors. Here are his eight best pieces of advice:
1. Start at the top
Nothing beats climbing in the great outdoors
© Matt Ray
Most indoor climbers should already be familiar with top roping – whereby the climber is attached to a rope passed up via an anchor system at the top of the climb, then down to a belayer at the foot of the climb – and it’s still the best way to get introduced to climbing on real rock, without feeling that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Durand suggests finding a competent climber to show you the technique, or hire a guide for a day's top roping.
2. Take the next steps
Indoor climbing doesn't always translate perfectly to rock
© Matt Ray; Climb Catalunya
If your top roping trip intensifies your keenness for scaling rock, then you’re going to want to take the leap into lead climbing, which involves clipping into bolts that have been pre-placed into a rock face, to create a route. It’s similar to lead climbing indoors, except you need to know how to safely place quickdraws into the bolts, and how best to make use of the anchor points at the high point of the climb, as well as manage your rope.
"If you want to advance and step up then you are going to have to lead – and the safest way to learn to do that is on a course," says Durand. "If you’re very strong and already climbing at sport grade 6b, then there are a number of places you could learn."
3. Read the rock
Unlike indoor walls, there no obvious holds on rock faces
© Matt Ray
Once you’ve got the safety and rope skills down, or are on a course learning them, then it’s time to to get stuck in and find out how outdoor climbing differs to indoor gyms. "What’s really different is that there are no obvious holds, so you need to learn how to read the rock. It’s quite difficult and is something that you can only do through experience," says Durand.
The good news is that the training you've already done is not wasted: "The climbing technique you learn indoors is transferrable, which is why you train there in the first place. But then afterwards you have to try to recognise the moves and the holds that you can use outdoors."
4. Trust your feet
Trusting your feet will become one of your key skills for outdoor climbing
© Matt Ray
The first thing you’ll notice on easier climbs outdoors is that they ask a lot from your feet. "Outdoors, the holds are perceived as being a lot smaller, so the foot technique is even more important than indoors, especially in the lower grades. Indoors we can have really steep climbs with really good holds, which doesn’t exist outdoors," Durand reveals.
"The geology means that the holds would break, the rock would be of poor quality. So, you will have to climb rocks that are not as steep, and the holds will be a lot smaller, so you will have to use foot technique more."
Trusting your feet will become one of your key skills. A lot of people used to climbing indoors can find it eye-opening in regards to what you can stand on in climbing shoes, from tiny pebbles sticking out of granite, to slabs of sandstone that look completely blank until you see the suggestion of a scoop and commit your weight onto it. You have to believe in the friction – something less aggressively downturned climbing shoes, like Scarpa’s Maestro, can make easier.
5. Prepare for an endurance challenge
Get your kit right and you'll go far
© Matt Ray
Climbing outdoors is a whole day out, unlike the 2-3 hour sessions you’re probably used to. "Often routes are a lot longer than indoors, so stamina and endurance are important, but there is also mental fatigue, because you have to trust your feet more and you can’t see the holds as much. You have other stimulus like the weather and fewer people around you, so that you feel a bit more lonely up there – mentally it’s more challenging," says Durand, who recommends taking more food and water than you're used to. And you should pay extra care to your hands, which are likely to lose a few layers of skin.
6. Climb mindfully
Breathing exercises will help prepare for challenging moments
© Matt Ray
It’s easy to start feeling exposed and vulnerable while high up on a rock face. Even those with a solid head for heights can end up getting ‘Elvis’ leg and find themselves trembling over a sheer drop. This is normal according to Durand. "The best technique to use to help you manage the fear [not control it] is from British climber Hazel Findlay – come back to your breathing – and you can do that through breathing exercises or yoga. Mindful climbing can help."
7. Wear a helmet – always
Be wary: it's a lot easier to lose your footing on rock than an indoor wall
© Matt Ray
When climbing indoors, safety is something that someone else has thought about (mostly). But not outdoors, warns Durand: "Outdoors you need to go with people who know what they're doing. It’s not more dangerous – if you know what you are doing – but saying that, my recommendation is to wear a helmet at all times, whether you are belaying or climbing, because it’s a lot easier to lose your footing. A small rock could fall from above, or you could drop a quickdraw."
8. Start to dream
Catalunya is home to some stunning climbing routes
© Matt Ray
Once you've got a solid grounding in sport climbing you can take those skills and expand on them to open the door to even more adventurous climbs. Whether you want to scale sea cliffs using trad climbing equipment, or climb epic sport multi-pitch routes in the French Alps, then there are courses to get you there. Keep climbing and this exhilarating activity will reward you with a lifetime of adventure.
Climb Catalunya run courses on how to get started with lead climbing, or advancing your skills, and then recovering with yoga. Visit http://climbcatalunya.com for information. Thanks to Scarpa climbing shoes, Edelweiss, Grivel and E9 clothing.
